“What’s the matter?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what to say to her. “I’m just very anxious.” I started rubbing my thighs with my palms as though I was trying to start a fire.

“I’m going to lead you through some breathing exercises,” she said. “Take my hands—”

“No,” I said too emphatically as I pushed back in my chair.

“Okay, then just count to ten with me.” We counted out loud in unison. I was painfully aware of the sound of my own voice. When we finally got to ten, she asked what was going on.

I tried to word it in treatment terms. “I feel myself acting out.”

“Acting out, how?” she asked. “Is it your anorexia?”

“No.” She’d read my file, of course. “I kicked that one. Well, sort of. I went to treatment for it a few years ago …”

“You’re still recovering.” She smiled. “I understand. I have an eating disorder, too.”

I’d already suspected this, that we had this in common. I had watched her careful choices at the lunch buffet, noticing that she’d skip over mashed potatoes and pile on extra string beans or steamed carrots. I’d also pieced together a few random personal details based on things she’d mentioned in group, along with a few conversations I’d overheard between her and Richard: she was forty-five, married with two kids, and had been to treatment for meth addiction. “So what is it, then?” she asked.

“I feel myself acting out in my love addiction,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. I couldn’t use the term without wanting to mock it immediately afterward. The label was like something out of a teen movie, or some cheesy pick-up line—“Baby, I’m a love addict, and I need one more hit of you.”

“Well, what does acting out look like for you?” she asked.

It usually started with the hollows of a particular collarbone—the professor’s, the nutritionist’s, the editorial assistant’s, anyone’s other than my actual partner’s—growing into a full-fledged obsession with whomever they belonged to. In an attempt to escape my thoughts, I’d solicit and seduce others to the point of mental annihilation, only to wake up the next morning with my obsession fortified. Alcohol made it worse. So did drugs. Exercise, especially when combined with a playlist, was nearly lethal. And the factors that elevated the behavior from “bad crush” to addiction were time and intensity, as well as the compulsive behavior that accompanied it; namely, fucking to forget.

But at the Ledge, I was limited. “I guess it just means fantasizing,” I said.

“Can you tell me who it is you’re fantasizing about?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”